On the Road to Reaganland (w/ Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh)

Oct 21, 2020

Historian Rick Perlstein and journalist Leon Neyfakh discuss the rise of movement conservatism in the 1970s, including battles over desegregation, gay rights, and abortion. They explore Reagan's campaign, white backlash, and right-wing rhetoric, disinterring forgotten figures crucial to conservatism's rise.

Ask episode

AI Snips

Chapters

Transcript

Episode notes

INSIGHT

Contingency Shapes Historical Narrative

The narrative of inevitability in history is a storytelling technique to engage the audience.
Highlighting multiple possible outcomes helps readers forget known historical endings and experience events fresh.

INSIGHT

Progress and Backlash Coexist Historically

History shows progress and backlash as real forces despite no strict inevitability.
Conservatives organize discontent when freedoms expand, creating cyclical political reactions.

INSIGHT

Innocence as Political Strategy

The conservative appeal often relies on asserting the innocence of 'normal Americans' against liberal guilt.
Reagan's rhetoric absolved Americans of blame, shifting focus from systemic issues to individual virtue.

Get the Snipd Podcast app to discover more snips from this episode

Get the app

Matt and Sam talk to two esteemed guests, Rick Perlstein and Leon Neyfakh, about why U.S. politics took a right turn in the 1970s. “We organize discontent,” as one New Right activist put it—and they did. Fierce battles over desegregation, gay rights, abortion, and the meaning of America itself all paved the way for Ronald Reagan's smashing victory in 1980.

Over four books and two decades, historian Rick Perlstein has chronicled the rise of movement conservatism in America, starting with its renegade beginnings in the 1950s and '60s. Now, with Reaganland (2020), his extraordinary tetralogy is complete—taking readers on a journey through Jimmy Carter's doomed administration, the culture wars of the 1970s, and Ronald Reagan's campaign for the presidency. Perlstein's sweeping narrative is paired in this episode with the brilliant work of journalist Leon Neyfakh, who just finished the third season of his podcast Fiasco. It's a deep-dive into the battle over integration in Boston public schools during the 1970s (colloquially but inaccurately known as the Boston "busing crisis")—a vivid and compulsively listenable portrait of a pivotal episode in recent American history.

In this conversation, Rick and Leon disinter forgotten figures from a decade crucial to the rise of conservatism—the 1970s—while discussing how they tell stories we know the ending to, the problem of contingency and political agency, and issues such as American innocence, white backlash, right-wing rhetoric, and more. Don't miss this one!

Further Reading:

Rick Perlstein, "I Thought I Understood the American Right. Trump Proved Me Wrong," NYTimes, April 11, 2017

Richard Sennett & Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class, (1972)

Jesse Curtis, "'Will the Jungle Take Over?' National Review and the Defense of Western Civilization in the Era of Civil Rights and African Decolonization," Journal of American Studies, November 2019

Jefferson Cowie, "Is Freedom White?" Boston Review, Sept 23, 2020

Tom Wicker, One of Us: Richard Nixon and the American Dream (1995)

... and don't forget to support Know Your Enemy on Patreon to hear all of Matt and Sam's bonus episodes!